On Monday the country woke up to the fact that
it was Trafalgar Day, and after an interval of ninety years, the anniversary was commemorated by articles in all the news- papers and by the placing of wreaths on the Nelson Column. We have dwelt elsewhere on the singular fact that English- men seem almost incapable of steadily keeping up a red-letter day, and will only add here our agreement with the declara- tion that Trafalgar should be, of all others, the battle held in remembrance by Englishmen. It gave us the unquestioned command of the sea, and it is on the command of the sea that our greatness as a nation rests. If we are not lords of the sea we are nothing, or indeed less than nothing,—an incon- siderable island filled with a mob of starving men and women. If by commemorating Trafalgar Day we can bring home to the people what is the meaning of the command of the sea, and the lesson that the lordship of the blue water is inextricably bound up with the national welfare, then a thousand times over let us keep it "with pomp and games." We are what we are, in no small measure, through Nelson's victory.
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